Astrobotic Angling for Launch of its
Moon Rover (Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Two of the competitors in the global $30 million race to see which
private entity will be the first to get an unmanned rover to the moon
said in the last two weeks that they’ll launch sometime in late 2017.
The fact that neither of those competitors was Pittsburgh’s own entry
into the race — the combination of Astrobotic and Carnegie Mellon
University — might sound like a blow to the team’s chances.

But Astrobotic president John Thornton said he’s not just trying to put
a good face on it when he claims the announcements will actually help
his team get its launch date set quicker. “I think there are some
things that will come out of [these announcements] that will help us in
this,” Mr. Thornton said Thursday, the day after SpaceIL, a team from
Israel, announced it had a launch contract in hand. “It could trigger a
cascade of things that we’ve been setting up that were on a certain
schedule, but now this could move things along.” (10/11)

Space Junk: The Soviet Union and
Successors Factor (Source: The Globalist)
The now-defunct Soviet Union and its space-faring successors, Russia
and Ukraine, collectively have contributed the most debris to the space
around Earth since the start of space exploration. As of July 1, 2015,
a total of 6,282 payloads, rocket bodies and general debris fragments
attributable to the Soviet, Russian or Ukrainian space programs have
been cataloged as currently in orbit around Earth. This represents 37%
of all current space debris. (10/10)

South Korean President to Visit NASA
(Source: Korea Times)
President Park Geun-hye will visit the Pentagon, headquarters of the
U.S. Department of Defense, along with a major space research
laboratory of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
later this week, Cheong Wa Dae said, Sunday. Park is scheduled to
embark on a four-day trip to Washington, D.C. Tuesday that will also
include a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House,
Friday. (10/11)

Canada's Space Policy Enters Orbit of
Election Campaign (Source: CBC News)
Evidence of running water observed on Mars last month was followed by a
detailed outline of NASA's plans for human exploration of the Red
Planet, spurring excitement about the future of near-space exploration.
In recent weeks, talk of Canada's place in that future has made its way
into the federal election campaign, with parties promising long-term
space industry strategies for the first time in decades. (10/11)

British inventor: Spaceport America
Giving Us the Silent Treatment (Source: KRQE)
The inventors of a one-of-a-kind aircraft say Spaceport America and the
FAA have ignored their requests to make history. “It’s infuriating.
It’s frustrating,” said The Register Special Projects Bureau Manager
Lester Haines. For five years, Haines and his British counterparts have
worked tirelessly to perfect the first ever rocket-powered
3D-printed-aircraft known as “The Vulture 2.”

“We were in the pub one day and we thought oh let’s 3D-print an
aircraft and put a rocket motor in it and that’s where the whole story
affair began,” said Haines. The aircraft is attached to a helium-filled
balloon. Once the team shoots it into the sky, they fire the rocket
motor inside. Then, the balloon bursts. “Then, it flies itself
automatically back to the ground. What could possibly go wrong? It’s
pretty simple,” said Haines.
The team, from the United Kingdom, was supposed to launch in Spain.

When that didn’t work, they moved their project to Spaceport America in
New Mexico. That was in 2014. “They agreed in principle,” Haines said.
“We actually went down to meet them and that was the last we ever heard
of it.” Haines said the Spaceport told him he had to get approval for
the project from the FAA. He said he sent in his paperwork 12 months
ago. “Basically what has happened is they have gone completely silent,
both Spaceport America and the FAA have gone completely silent,” said
Haines. (10/10)

Space Agencies Meet to Discuss
Exploration (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
Representatives from 14 space agencies met on Wednesday, Oct. 7, to
discuss further steps to advance international cooperation on space
exploration. The meeting was held at the at the European Space Agency’s
(ESA) European Space Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.
All the participating agencies form the International Space Exploration
Coordination Group (ISECG), a voluntary, non-binding coordination forum
to discuss global interests in space exploration. (10/11)

Why Does Congress Call Mars Plan a
'Journey to Nowhere'? (Source: CSM)
Congressional Republicans had harsh words for NASA's newly released
report, "Journey to Mars," reported The Hill. They wanted more details,
particularly about logistics, they said. "It's just some real pretty
photographs and some nice words," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R) of Texas,
who chairs the House Science Committee, during the hearing. "This
[report] sounds good, but it is actually a journey to nowhere until we
have that budget and we have that schedule and we have the deadlines."

Republicans also criticized the Obama administration for cutting space
funding. Congress shares the blame, said ranking Democrat Rep. Eddie
Bernice Johnson of Texas. "Too many times in recent years, NASA's had
no idea when it would actually get an appropriation, when it would
actually be reauthorized, whether that appropriation would be for more
than a few months or whether they may even have to suspend their work
due to government shutdown," she said, according to The Hill. (10/10)

Business Case For Private Company
Exploration Of Extraterrestrial Resources (Source: IBT)
Despite recent setbacks in space exploration, Hannah Kerner is still
betting on its viability. The 22-year-old executive director of the
Space Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose members
represent an eclectic group of space-focused companies, notes that in
the span of a single generation, space exploration has been transformed
from a public endeavor to a largely private pursuit.

Hundreds of companies are raising money from investors, laying the
groundwork for daring missions and advertising new services. Amazon.com
Inc. founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin in Kent, Washington, is building a
reusable capsule that paying passengers will employ to glimpse the
curvature of the Earth, while Astrobotic Technology Inc. in Pittsburgh
wants to create a shipping service to deliver technology and other
payloads to the moon. Click here.
(10/9)

SpaceX, ULA to Bid on GPS Launch Next
Month (Source: DOD Buzz)
Rocket-maker Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX and
headed by billionaire Elon Musk, is expected to challenge ULA on a
competition to launch a GPS satellite. Bids are due Nov. 16 in a
contest to launch around May 2018 a GPS III satellite as part of the
Air Force’s EELV, program, according to a recently updated notice on
the Federal Business Opportunities website. The contract is expected to
be announced in March. (10/9)

Pentagon Denies ULA Waiver on Russian
Engines (Source: Washington Post)
The Pentagon announced Friday that it would not grant the United Launch
Alliance a waiver allowing it to bypass a congressional ban on
Russian-made engines that the company has said it desperately needs to
compete in the multibillion-dollar national security launch market.

ULA, the joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing that had a
monopoly on national security satellite launches for a decade, had
pleaded with the Pentagon for a waiver that would allow it to use more
RD-180 engines to power its Atlas V rocket. The company has four of the
engines in its inventory that it could use for national security
launches, said ULA chief executive Tory Bruno. (10/9)

KSC Helps Launch Small Satellites
(Source: Florida Today)
Events this month are spotlighting Kennedy Space Center’s role
promoting launches for the fast-growing field of mini-satellites known
as CubeSats. Last Thursday in California, KSC managers helped a handful
of CubeSats hitch rides on an Atlas V rocket whose main purpose was to
loft a secret intelligence mission for the Department of Defense.

On Wednesday, representatives from KSC’s Launch Services Program will
discuss roughly $17 million in awards they have made to several
companies developing small rockets that could offer CubeSats more
frequent, inexpensive and timely launches. Some of those small rockets
could launch from KSC, historically home to the world’s largest launch
vehicles like the Saturn V and space shuttle, and in the future to
NASA’s 322-foot Space Launch System. (10/9)

Reusability, Mass Production Top the
List for SmallSat Launch Priorities (Source: Via Satellite)
Emerging small satellite launch providers are eager to speed up the
production of rockets and introduce reusability in new launch systems.
Speaking at the Hosted Payload and SmallSat Summit on Oct. 8,
executives from Virgin Galactic, Firefly Space Systems and DARPA all
described rapid production and reusability as a must-haves to lower the
cost of launch. (10/9)

China Eyes Next Generation Crew
Vehicle for Deep Space Missions (Source: Parabolic Arc)
China is eyeing a next-generation human space transportation system to
carry taikonauts to future space stations and to conduct missions to
the moon, Mars and asteroids. A feasibility study proposes a conical
spacecraft similar to the American Orion and Apollo capsules capable of
carrying between two and six crew members. The capsule would be
attached to service modules of different sizes similar to the ones used
for Apollo missions. (10/9)

How NASA Turned Astronauts into Social
Media Superstars (Source: Popular Science)
NASA has only been on Instagram since September 2013, but it has
amassed over 4.6 million followers on its flagship account, in a little
over two years. “Space is interesting to lots of different people, for
lots of different reasons,” says NASA Press Secretary Lauren B. Worley,
“Interest in space is something that doesn’t go away.”

Those 4.6 million Instagrammers may certainly be interested in space,
but the real connection between them and NASA is the perspective of
space in those pictures. They’re first-person, taken by the people who
are actually seeing all of the wonders of the universe up close: the
astronauts. Astronauts’ social media posts are a big part of why NASA
attracts so many followers. They’re the only human beings seeing the
wonders of space firsthand. Click here.
(10/9)

Space Hotel: Coming Soon to a Moon
Near You (Source: Varsity)
So how do you make a hotel in space? Apparently, by printing one. For
the past few years ESA has been exploring the possibilities of 3D
printing buildings on the moon. In one of the designs an inflatable
dome is covered with printed layers of lunar soil, which form an
incredibly strong but also very lightweight shell around the dwelling,
protecting inhabitants from radiation and extreme temperatures.

The end product looks a bit like something out of Minecraft. 3D
printers have made the prospect of towns on the moon much more
feasible, as these robots are a hell of a lot easier to transport, and
could build using the moon’s natural materials. (10/10)